I was born in Umtata in the Eastern Cape, and grew up in the same region
in a small town called Butterworth. I am the oldest of five siblings,
two brothers and two sisters. I passed my high school in 1990 but due
to financial constraints could not continue with my tertiary education
at the time. I worked as a cleaner, teaboy, and then as a salesman for
a clothing department store and I was retrenched after four years. In
1997, after some time without employment, I decided to go back to school
and I enrolled to redo my matric at the Visual Arts and Crafts Academy
in Johannersburg. In 1998 I was accepted at the Fine Arts Department at
Wits University to persue my studies for a junior Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree, which I completed in 2001. Currently I am doing my Masters in
Fine Arts at Wits University. During my years as a student I have had
the opportunity to visit countries like Sweden and France on student exchange
and museum internship programmes.

In my art I try to focus more on histories, such as my history as an individual
and as part of groups, such as my Xhosa ethnic identity, South African
nationality, and of my global identity. In the past, I have been using
different mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking
in trying to address my themes (recently I have also incorporated performance
pieces).

My art is autobiographical
and deals with my Xhosa and South African heritage as a form of positive
identity and self-imagery, but it is also directed to the public at large
so that people may learn about my culture. I reject some people's confinement
through censorship that restricts our choices of representation. Through
my art I aim to make societies understand themselves, risk self-examination,
address issues, attitudes, and behaviors, and finally I aim to make those
societies challenge themselves to be open to change.

I grew up being
taught a very narrow, one-sided version of our South African history,
an inaccurate, boring apartheid myth that excluded my ancestors. With
my art I choose to reclaim the past, to explore my history and to work
as a storyteller telling about our past, present, and future. Through
visual representations, I connect the past to the present. It is my way
of knowing what I know, a way to uncover how, where, and why I learned
it, and a way to unlearn it. I think that in a society that preaches democracy
and multiculturalism, it is important to have an art that expresses and
illustrates diverse perspectives, even if it means producing controversial
visual images that some people might not like.

I would like to
believe that my culture is not interested in converting other people to
our culture and belief system, but I think that its contribution to the
human society in sharing its philosophies, ideas, and value systems is
very significant. I belong to a group of artists who are critical and
while crossing boundaries, change themselves, their art, and contribute
to changing others' perceptions, imaginations, and visions of the world.
I am not so naive as to think that one artist and his artworks can change
the whole world, but it can be safely argued that art can contribute to
the discussions and debates about issues that lead to certain changes
in world perceptions about certain issues.